Ray Tomlinson
The BBN programmer who sent the first networked email and gave addresses their @ sign.
Last updated
via Wikipedia: Ray Tomlinson · see source
Raymond Samuel Tomlinson was an American computer programmer who created the first email program on the ARPANET system in 1971.[1] The Internet Hall of Fame credited Tomlinson with "fundamentally changing the way people communicate".[2] The @ symbol was chosen by Tomlinson to denote that a user was located "at" a specific machine, and this user@host format continues to be the standard for email addresses.[3][4][5]
Life and work
He attended Broadalbin Central School and later Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, receiving a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1963.[6] In 1971, he adapted the SNDMSG program using code from CPYNET to send messages between different computers on ARPANET.[7] Tomlinson selected the @ symbol to indicate the recipient's location because it was not used in usernames or TENEX programming.[4] Raymond Tomlinson, his father, was employed in carpet mills and subsequently in the grocery sector, while his mother Dorothy Tomlinson was employed by a dry cleaning establishment.[8][6]
For his master's thesis, Tomlinson created a hybrid speech synthesizer that combined analog and digital components, and he was awarded his degree in 1965.[9]
What the cited sources add
The Guardian obituary stated that Tomlinson's choice of the @ sign made a little-used keyboard character into what the Museum of Modern Art called a "defining symbol of the computer age"[5] Tomlinson introduced email capability in 1971 as a side project to his real job of extending the minicomputer's operating system.[5] The Guardian noted that Tomlinson started by sending test messages to himself before introducing the system to his colleagues.[5] Tomlinson once said in a company interview that he created email "mostly because it seemed like a neat idea"[10]
According to a 1998 Forbes profile, Tomlinson showed a colleague his invention and said, "Don't tell anyone!"[10] The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Tomlinson was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2012.[2]
References
- Wikipedia, "Ray Tomlinson" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Email pioneer Ray Tomlinson dead at 74", The Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 2016; "E-mail inventor Ray Tomlinson, who popularized @ symbol, dies at 74", Ars Technica, March 6, 2016; ABC News, "Inventor of Modern Email, Ray Tomlinson, Dies", ABC News; Claudio Müller, "E-Mail-Pionier ist tot: Rest @ Peace, Ray Tomlinson", CHIP Online, March 7, 2016; "Ray Tomlinson, email inventor and selector of @ symbol, dies aged 74", the Guardian, March 7, 2016; Dante D'Orazio, "Inventor of email and savior of the @ sign, Ray Tomlinson, is dead at 74", en.wikipedia.org
- "Email pioneer Ray Tomlinson dead at 74", The Sydney Morning Herald, March 6, 2016. facts only, no text reused. smh.com.au
- Wikipedia, "Ray Tomlinson" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "The First Network Email" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Ray Tomlinson" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Germain, "The 3,000-year-old story hidden in the @ sign", BBC News, 2025-09-24; "Ray Tomlinson obituary", the Guardian, March 14, 2016; Grimes, "Raymond Tomlinson, Who Put the @ Sign in Email, Is Dead at 74", The New York Times, March 7, 2016; Fitzpatrick, "How One Man Saved the '@' Symbol", March 7, 2016; "Ray Tomlinson obituary", the Guardian, March 14, 2016; Grimes, "Raymond Tomlinson, Who Put the @ Sign in Email, Is Dead at 74", The New York Times, March 7, 2016; Fitzpatrick, "How One Man Saved the '@' Symbol", March 7, 2016; Antonell en.wikipedia.org
- "Ray Tomlinson obituary", the Guardian, March 14, 2016. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
- Wikipedia, "Ray Tomlinson" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Marquard, "Ray Tomlinson, @ 74; pioneer of e-mail", The Daily Star, March 12, 2016; Varghese, "Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dead at 74", iTWire, March 7, 2016; Evan Koblentz, "Email inventor Ray Tomlinson dies at 74", TechRepublic, March 5, 2016 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Ray Tomlinson" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Ray Tomlinson, who sent the first e-mail, has died", The Economist, March 7, 2016 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Ray Tomlinson" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Ray Tomlinson obituary", the Guardian, March 14, 2016; Grimes, "Raymond Tomlinson, Who Put the @ Sign in Email, Is Dead at 74", The New York Times, March 7, 2016; Subik, "Broadalbin native put the @ in your e-mail address", The Daily Gazette, October 17, 2010 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Ray Tomlinson" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grimes, "Raymond Tomlinson, Who Put the @ Sign in Email, Is Dead at 74", The New York Times, March 7, 2016 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Ray Tomlinson, email inventor and selector of @ symbol, dies aged 74", the Guardian, March 7, 2016. facts only, no text reused. theguardian.com
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Ray Tomlinson (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
More in Pioneers Of Computing And Information Theory
Related in Pioneers Of Computing And Information Theory
Links follow this subject's own source article.
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Ray Tomlinson (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced